New Pimax pitool is up! Install new Nvidia drivers first!

Please note that the latest NVIDIA graphics driver version (418.91 or above) must be downloaded and installed before you connect the VR headset.

New version features

1. Adding Brainwarp new features, such as refresh rate switching and Smart Smoothing function.

2. Modify the VR headset name as Pimax 5K/8K which is shown in steamvr.

3. Bug fixing:

- Fix tracking issues in known scenarios.

- Fix tearing screen issue in games.

- Fix button related issue for wireless controller (such as Lone echo cannot use grip button)

https://piplay-us.pimaxvr.com/PiToolSetup_1.0.1.109_R193.exe

BE AWARE IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY DO A FIRMWARE UPDATE ON HMD!!!!!

Reviews?

Someones gotta be the beta tester...

Reviews:

I still have the problem with Smart Smoothing enabled, that I have stuttering/warping/blur of the landscape when I roll an aircraft and look to the sides. I tried in 72Hz mode and Smart Smoothing showed to be active all the time. Before I tested, I lowered my settings in game, to be able to maintain at least 36fps for SS.

Problem is, that while rolling, the fps don`t stay constantly at 36. They alter between 32 and 42, even if SS shows to be active.

When using ASW with the Rift I never had that problem. So I think, it is related to PiTool, which is not optimized for DCS (or flight sims in general)?

...

I've heard someone saying that you can forget about the lower Hertz modes anyway, they are trash (for now?). Don't know if Pimax can actually "fix" these with the software but it might be that the hardware in combination with the firmware/software will never achieve a good Smart Smoothing or Brainwarp experience like with the "native" 45/90 or 40/80 (8K) settings. There might be hope for these.

Maybe I have to try the 90/45Hz mode again. Problem is, that I can barely hold 45fps with my current system in DCS and if I can`t maintain 45fps constantly the Smart Smoothing doesn`make sense either.

Still there is hope for optimizations of DCS and the PiTool. Waiting for the Fixed Foveated Rendering, which might bring some gains in performance.

Maybe I have to try the 90/45Hz mode again. Problem is, that I can barely hold 45fps with my current system in DCS and if I can`t maintain 45fps constantly the Smart Smoothing doesn`make sense either.

Seeing your setup, do you know if you are constrained by CPU or GPU? Any OC to the CPU?

I've heard someone saying that you can forget about the lower Hertz modes anyway, they are trash (for now?)

They are not trash, but in fact very useful. Flying at 72 Hz since PiTool beta stage.

I still have the problem with Smart Smoothing enabled, that I have stuttering/warping/blur of the landscape when I roll an aircraft and look to the sides. I tried in 72Hz mode and Smart Smoothing showed to be active all the time. Before I tested, I lowered my settings in game, to be able to maintain at least 36fps for SS.

 

Problem is, that while rolling, the fps don`t stay constantly at 36. They alter between 32 and 42, even if SS shows to be active.

 

When using ASW with the Rift I never had that problem. So I think, it is related to PiTool, which is not optimized for DCS (or flight sims in general)?

To rule out DCS completely, why not try doing a fresh install of DCS via a new download with no mods or AC modules to a different drive if you have one or install folder and see if you have this issue with a bare bones DCS installation. Just try the free plane so you don't burn any keys on the fresh installation. Are you getting this problem in the stable and beta versions too?

Also if you have a spare hard drive (even a slow one would do), do a complete windows 10 install as a 30 day trail version so its free with only a new DCS installation and video driver and only required Vr software to test out your system. Again only use free planes so you don't burn a DCS key.

I know it a lot of work but this should give you piece of mind in completely ruling out any software bugs that may be causing this.

Waiting for the Fixed Foveated Rendering, which might bring some gains in performance.

it should definitely help.

do we have a real ETA?

i’ve heard everything from 3 months to 3 years

Seeing your setup, do you know if you are constrained by CPU or GPU? Any OC to the CPU?

It`s the GPU, that Limits my System. CPU is slightly overclocked to 4,4GHz.

CPU is running at about 40-50% on all cores, GPU is sometimes at 100%

To rule out DCS completely, why not try doing a fresh install of DCS via a new download with no mods or AC modules to a different drive if you have one or install folder and see if you have this issue with a bare bones DCS installation. Just try the free plane so you don't burn any keys on the fresh installation. Are you getting this problem in the stable and beta versions too?

 

Also if you have a spare hard drive (even a slow one would do), do a complete windows 10 install as a 30 day trail version so its free with only a new DCS installation and video driver and only required Vr software to test out your system. Again only use free planes so you don't burn a DCS key.

 

I know it a lot of work but this should give you piece of mind in completely ruling out any software bugs that may be causing this.

Thanks for your advice, but I am sure that the problem is related to the Smart Smoothing of PiTool, because I never had those problems with ASW of Oculus in DCS and the same problem exists also for IL2.

For testing, as I said, I choose a situation in which I was able to maintain 36fps. Flying straight and looking to the sides is smooth. But starting to roll brings the fps to jump between about 34 and 44. Smart Smoothing is not able to keep constant frames in that situation, which seems to be the problem, if you ask me.

Are there any other reports about users of the new PiTool version and DCS?

It`s the GPU, that Limits my System. CPU is slightly overclocked to 4,4GHz.

CPU is running at about 40-50% on all cores, GPU is sometimes at 100%

The DCS thread is just bouncing around your cores at a guess its at 100%

I'm seeing a very nice gain in Performance,about 11 FPS over last firmware/PiTool with same setting in DCS on same mission.

The DCS thread is just bouncing around your cores at a guess its at 100%

I thought DCS only uses two cores, why would ram0506 be using all of his cores at 50%?

I thought DCS only uses two cores

i don’t believe that’s true.

DCS uses a whole bunch of threads and all of those threads can be assigned to any of your cores.

DCS uses multiple cores for all sorts of parallel tasks, but the main process (that drives the game flow, ai computations etc) is on one single core. So, in a nutshell it is a single core game, don't fool yourself when you see all the cores being busy in the task list.

to be pandantic , DCS uses “threads”. and a thread can run on any core and will very often bounce around between 2, 3 or more cores.

which is why you can be cpu bound when task manager only shows 30 % core usage.